


Lore Book- Synchrony

by TheShadowsmiths



Series: Fireteam Daybreak [14]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Destiny, Fireteam Daybreak, Gen, Kinderguardian, Post-Red War (Destiny), Queerplatonic Relationships, asshole with a soft heart, ghost and guardian, learning how to make friends, nightpiercer, overcoming period-typical racism, training animals
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:16:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27122383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheShadowsmiths/pseuds/TheShadowsmiths
Summary: A Guardian resurrected days before the Red Legion's attack on the city, struggles to find his place among devastated Guardians, but finds a friend in another outcast.
Relationships: qpp - Relationship, queerplatonic - Relationship
Series: Fireteam Daybreak [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/744885
Kudos: 2





	Lore Book- Synchrony

**Author's Note:**

> A joint-project with my good friend [Nightpiercer](https://twitter.com/nightpiercer/). This lore book details the story of my Hunter Tate meeting and befriending his hunter Faith.

He stands at the edge of the broken ridges of Twilight Gap and watches Red Legion harvesters patrol the perimeter just beyond the outer wall.   
Tate is only nine days young when he lays eyes on the Last City for the first time. The haven he had been promised when he first woke in the badlands of what used-to-be Arizona, coughs up plumes of white and black smoke across the horizon as far as he can see- a portrayal of smoldering hope, if he’d ever seen it.  
In a way, he’s relieved it’s not the destination he was promised. From the moment his ghost had claimed this city was “safe”, he knew in his gut that statement was an illusion waiting to be shattered. To him, “safe” is a warning bell. As if the Collapse wasn’t proof enough of that, the fresh destruction of their City is now a grave testament.

His ghost shudders after an extended silence and withers beside him at the sight of the Traveler, shackled and cold. Even in such close proximity, the vacancy of its light is uncomfortable and empty.   
When the light had gone dark, he’d wondered if he’d done something wrong. He had heard stories of ghosts who had strayed too far from the Traveler’s light in search of their Guardian and starved out in the dark, but this was different. There had been no gradual taper warning of imminent death, only a violent disconnect. He’d known then that something was terribly wrong, but he never would have imagined this.  
“I didn’t want to believe it was possible, but…”

He turns to the man standing beside him, whose attention is focused on the distant sound of terrified screams and gunfire from just beyond the wall. A small group breaks for a clearing, but a Harvester sweeps in and cuts them down like ants in a concentrated sunbeam. Both of them close their eyes in solemn defeat.

“We need to help them.” There’s tangible pain in the ghosts’ quiet, warbled voice as it almost cracks, but his Guardian isn’t moved.

Whatever hit them isn’t something he wants to confront like this. “Can’t,” he replies, and his ghost rankles at his apathy. 

Colt floats into his line of sight and turns, appendages flaring like ruffled feathers. “What do you mean, _can’t_?”

The grimace that crinkles the Hunter’s nose between tired eyes — _smeared with soot and ether_ — is unintentional but telling. He hadn’t survived a crash in the EDZ and ditched the Fallen that scrapped his ship, to willingly walk to a death there was no coming back from.  
“What’m I gonna do? Hit em’ with this _peashooter_?” He twirls an old, slim-barreled revolver around his trigger finger and drops it back into its holster. “Even if I wanted to, we don’t have the firepower.”

“So you’re… what, just going to _walk away_?”

“Mmmmm... yep.” The gunslinger tips his hat, turns on heel, and flips one corner of his serape over his shoulder as he heads back up the path that had brought them there. 

His ghost doesn’t follow; instead, he turns back to the City, his shell shaking and downcast in disbelief. 

“Let’s go, kid. No sense cryin’ over spilled milk.”

“You _coward_ …” he hisses, stopping Tate in his tracks. “To think, I searched countless years to find you, just for you to turn your back on humanity when they need you most.”

He turns quick on heel, scraping rust-worn spurs in the dirt, and gestures toward the city with an angry, outstretched palm. “They needed us ‘bout five days ago! Ain’t _nothin_ ’we kin’do now.”

“You can’t know for sure!” he cracks back, sharp as a whip.

It cuts deep enough that the hunter feels the familiar pang of shame in his gut, though it’s overshadowed by reflexive panic as a Harvester emerges from the other side of the cliff and shakes the ground. Tate snatches his seething shadow out of the air, spilling snow and gravel over the edge, and ducks behind the protruding rock between them. 

“You’re a disgrace,” Colt growls and wriggles in his hand as the man drapes the hem of his serape around him.

“May’be, but I’m still alive, an’so are you,” he replies without taking his eyes off the harvester waning in the distance.

“What does it matter if innocent lives are lost because of your selfishness!?”

“Selfish, sure, but it’s suicide, kid,” he explains with a tired drawl. “We go in there now, without knowin’ what’s waitin’, we’re juss’gon’ get ourselves killed, an’we ain’t gonna do anyone _any good_ if we’re _dead_. I reckon we’re better off back in th’dead zone, than tryin’a fight whatever the hell did… that.” He nods vaguely over his shoulder in the direction of the broken tower, the imprisoned Traveler.

His ghost whines and sputters desperately, “But what about-“

“I said, _No_.” 

The cold silence that passes between them isn’t the first in their time together, but he’s right. Tate knows throwing his life away to save one or two wayward souls would not change that, nor would it bring back the lost. And what of the others he may yet save if he regains his immortality? What would become of them if he died there today?  
The Traveler is powerless. He is powerless. He couldn’t really be expected to get in there and stare down a fleet with a stick.   
Now more than ever, their journey is about survival. If the Vanguard did manage to take back the city, they’d need guardians.   
His ghost finally cedes. Colt drifts out of his grasp, still deep in thought. “We need help, then.” 

Tate grunts as he pushes himself up out of the dirt and brushes the mud clumps from his chaps. “That’s a start.”

“There are settlements throughout the EDZ- if we can find one, maybe we get a group and help look for survivors…”

His jaw sets but he doesn’t protest. It would be truthful to remind him of the likelihood they’d find any survivors, but it would also be cruel. And hope is already in such short supply.  
With a quiet sigh, Tate tilts his head up the hill and pops his brows.   
“You lead kid, I’ll follow.”


End file.
